Attract fireflies to your yard by encouraging your
parents to cut down on the use of pesticides. Turn off all the
outside lights you don't need. The artificial light interferes with
fireflies luminous signals. You will not see as many fireflies on nights
when the moon is full. Low hanging trees and tall grass is also
attractive to fireflies.

Actually a beetle, the firefly and when fully grown
is almost as long as the width of your thumb. Its wing covers are
blackish-brown, with dull yellow borders. The female firefly does
not fly. Fireflies use their lights to attract a mate. The
larva of the firefly glows just like the adult. The glow they make
has no heat. Oxygen mixes with body fluids in the firefly's tail
and makes light. Most of the firefly's enemies are not afraid of its
lights. Often you can see a strange glow coming from a frogs belly.
Adult fireflies eat nothing, but the larva may eat insect larvae, slugs
and snails.

It is fun on a warm summer night to collect
fireflies for close observation. Please respect them as living
things and be gentle with them. Set them free after you have watched
them light. They are fascinating and have often been called the
"world's smallest dynamo". For a closer look, click
here.